In the lobby of San Francisco’s opulent Fairmont Hotel, Ephraim Isaac wasn’t hard to spot. He was the one wearing the white djellaba (robe), natalah (fringed scarf) and gobah (wedding cake-shaped head covering). He looked like a Yemeni prince. Isaac was there, along with Jews from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America, to participate in…
Shoshana M. Landow ’91 (Anthropology 302, Princeton University, 1989) Meera Mehadevan’s Shulamith (copyright 1975) exemplifies a recent novel in the sakti tradition that has the effect of showing the effect of the dominant Hundu culture upon the Jewish women of India. The novel’s main character, Shulamith, experiences a “sense of dual fidelity” between her devotion…
In the midst of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, Samson Talkar did something he had never done before on Shabbat: He packed a pistol before leaving for synagogue. Talkar, a retired chief of homicides with the Mumbai police, was not frightened. But as last week’s terrorist siege on his city entered its third day, the unflappable…
Kochi (formerly Cochin) is a city on the South Indian coast, in the State of Kerala boarding the Arabian Sea. There in fact two Kochis, the fabled spice city of the Malabar Coast on Fort Cochin Island, and a newer modern city across the channel. These two cities lie at the mouth of a natural…
A new book written in the native languages of the Bnei Menashe will enable many members of the lost tribe to celebrate Chanukah for the first time. The Bnei Menashe of northeastern India will have an added reason to celebrate this week with the release of a new book on the laws and customs of…
Descendants of centuries-old Jewish community in China’s Kaifeng rediscover Jewish heritage after near complete assimilation in local community In Chinese terms, the city of Kaifeng, about 500 miles southwest of Beijing, is reminiscent of the Israeli city of Hadera: The number of its residents is 700,000 – as opposed to Beijing’s 15 million or Shanghai’s…
Jewish communities can be found all over the world. A study by scientists at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and other places found that the Indian Jewish community is “overwhelmingly” South Asian, with a “very small” amount of Middle Eastern genes. To find out where Indian Jewish populations came from and…
Headstones of old Jewish graves smashed, remains disinterred, thrown into river in town of Panvel, where few dozen Jews still live. Majority of community moved to Israel. Yonatan Kandalar, whose grandparents are buried there, shocked to see destruction, disrespect during visit Yonatan Kandalar’s private heritage trip to the city in which he was born in…
Every year, Jews from around the world migrate to Israel, a process known as aliyah, a Hebrew word meaning “ascent.” But for the Bnei Menashe community of India, who believe they are descendents of one of the 10 lost tribes of ancient Israel, the road has been long and fraught with difficulty. While almost 2,000…
There’s no question that India’s secularism is under strain. Militant Hinduism remains as much a potent force as extremist Islam. The ongoing bloodletting in Kashmir is an open sore, and the periodic spasms of communal violence in Gujarat, combined with memories of the Mumbai bombings of 2006, have led to undeniable tensions. Just have a…